In my previous posts on the MTA financial disaster, I identified several costs that have nothing to do with providing transportation today, or in the future. Absent these costs, with fair pricing by contractors, productivity gains by workers, somewhat higher fares (though probably no higher per unlinked trip than in 1995), and congestion pricing, the MTA should be able to pay for both its rail operating needs and its ongoing rail capital needs – on a sustainable operating basis. These costs from the past include excess pension costs to cover deficient funding, above and beyond the additional costs created by post-1994 pension enhancements (which are morally the responsibility of existing workers and retirees), retiree health insurance in excess of 25 percent of the current cost of retiree health insurance to be deposited in a trust fund, and debt service, not including debts incurred for entirely new facilities that increase revenues or reduce costs (ie. not including debts for “state of good repair” and “normal replacement” “capital spending”).

The first step in addressing these costs from the past, the step our politicians are almost certain to be unwilling to take, is to tell the truth about them. For two centuries, generations of Americans saved and sacrificed to leave behind a better, richer country than the one they inherited. In effect there was a voluntary transfer of well being from poorer older generations to richer younger generations, because the older generations were primarily concerned with their children and their legacies. But the generations now in charge, the richest in U.S. history, have done the reverse. Those coming after will be poorer, pay more, and get less. In the public sector, the result could be a revulsion against public agencies and employees, as more and more money goes to the past and not public services and benefits, and public services and benefits thus seem to be a worse and worse deal. In contrast I would let people know, right in their face, exactly what they are paying in exchange for what they are getting, and how much in addition they are paying due to the legacy of Generation Greed. And not just at the MTA. h

Paul Ryan, lying sack of excrement; part 1012.

To paraphrase Erich Segal, “What can you say about a 22 year old girl who died?”

I’m pretty sure I met Hope Reichbach in her childhood, probably more than once.

The first time I met her as an adult, she was walking down Montague Street with then Council candidate Stephen Levin.

Steve introduced us.

The next Republican line of attack: By dignifying the ravings of idiots with a response, the President showed incredible weakness

The Obama spending binge is sorta like his Kenyan birth certificate.

Many worry that the Arab Rising may be a short lived phenomena susceptible to violent put downs by autocratic government forces throughout the region.  This is simply not true.  A reading of Anwar Sadat’s autobiography reveals that in the past Arab freedom fighters were quite willing to face adversity, imprisonment and death for their cause and in the end seek out political solutions to their situations.  Sadat did all of this during British colonial rule and went onto be